Case for not proven verdict not proven.
In a recent article a respected columnist in the Times suggested that perhaps it was time for England to adopt the Scottish system which includes a "not proven" verdict. Obviously in England in a criminal case you are either found guilty, if the prosecution has managed to prove its case to the requisite standard, otherwise you are acquitted and found not guilty. In Scotland there is a third option which is to merely say that the prosecution case is not proven. The accused largely gets the benefit of a guilty verdict, (in the sense that he suffers no penalty and for the purposes of any new trial is treated in the same way as on a not guilty verdict) but obviously has something of a cloud potentially hanging over him or her.
In practice the verdict is relatively rare. At least therefore juries do not use it as a way of abdicating responsibility. Nonetheless it does mean that a defendant against whom nothing has been proved effectively still has a stain on his or her character. The old Scottish joke that the verdict meant "guilty but you mustn't do it again or else" is testament to the reality of that stain.
One suggested benefit is that it allows accusers (for example in a rape case) to be shown to be potentially credible even if the case is not sufficiently strong to be proved. However that to me seems to impose significant disadvantage without a corresponding benefit. It means that a defendant who has not been convicted, and who would presumably have been identified, leaves under a cloud even though the prosecution could not prove its case. At the same time it would have the anomalous effect that in those cases where a not guilty verdict was entered, inferentially it might be assumed that the jury were actually disbelieving a complainant because they had not chosen a not proven verdict. While such complainants are not normally identified, (and save in exceptional circumstances I do not think that the complainant in a rape case should be identified even on a not guilty verdict, because not guilty does not mean that they were not raped and it is difficult enough for a woman to have the strength to come forward in a rape case without adding another layer of worry to the equation) there will always be people associated with the case who will know who they are, and they themselves would have to live with the added burden of a not guilty rather than not proven verdict.
If the case is not proved then the verdict should be not guilty. It is perfectly reasonable to expect innocent people to put the prosecution to proof. If there were a distinction between not proven and not guilty, then they might feel under an obligation to try positively affirm innocence, when they should feel under no pressure to do so. Juries would be likely to apply distinctions between not proven and not guilty on different occasions. There is a perfectly sensible and rational reason for forcing the prosecution to prove its case to the requisite standard, and allowing a defendant, having regard to that, to decide how best to present a case or rely in gaps in the prosecution case. There is no sensible basis for changing the English system to include a not proven verdict.